Hi, I'm Margo Rowder, an author, editor, copywriter, and filmmaker. My latest manuscript is 30 DECIBELS (YA speculative fiction), and by day I'm Social Media Manager for the Television Academy.
Get in touch by clicking me:

Dystopia hitting libraries too soon

Thirty Decibels, the teen sci-fi manuscript I’m currently revising, is set three generations into the future – in 2093. Some of its central conflict stems fromtheimpending closure of all libraries. (It may seem odd out of context, but the libraries in Thirty Decibels carry a different meaning.)

So when I heard about the possibility that Evanston’s libraries may close – that is, reallibraries closing in present-day – I was floored. It was the dystopia I’d imagined, almost a century too soon.

There’d been a similar scare in Philadelphia last September, where all the city’s libraries were to close mere weeks later. I heard about it through an old friend, and retweeted the link. I couldn’t believe something like this could happen. But The Consumerist, source of the original story, soon ran an update that Philadelphia’s libraries had been saved by an online-sales tax.

Last month, I heard about Illinois’s library trouble. State budget cuts were anticipated to shut them down. Save Illinois Libraries gathered support, and the cuts were smaller than they could’ve been. The libraries have survived, but now they’re down to the quick in funding. Some of our elected officials have pledged support, but SIL could use Illinoisans’ help to drum up more. (You can also become their fan on Facebook.)

Support BranchLove

The latest library crunch looms in Evanston.
On February 2, the city council voted to close their branch libraries, even though visits are up from 2008. While grassroots organization BranchLove scrambled for non-profit status in order to accept donations, citizens pledged dollar-amounts of support via email. At February 4th’s city council meeting, 3rd-Ward Alderman Melissa Wynne and library activists set their sights on a six-month reprieve. This would keep the libraries open while a task force searches out alternate, long-term funding. Nothing is final; Evanston’s budget meeting is February 20, and the city council’s vote is February 22nd.

BranchLove.org co-founder Lori Keenan says it best:

We walk gingerly and think good things and are again, cautiously optimistic until the final vote (the one that counts) to pass the budget, as proposed, Monday night. It would be great once more to have as much support there on Monday night as possible.

I grew up near the Central Street branch of the Evanston Library and I am not too happy to imagine it closing down. My mom took us there every week, we got to take home a stack of exciting books; it was my introduction to the whole concept of libraries. We could walk there from home. The experience made me a life-long library user. It seems very short-sighted to solve temporary budget problems with drastic solutions that benefit no one.

Like this:

Related

8 Comments:

Margo – thanks for the great post, and yes, it feels like fiction even in the midst of it. You would think for all the pushback we’ve gotten that we were trying to keep two casinos open. It’s libraries, people. Get it? Anyway, thank you, we value your support and appreciate you sharing with your readers.

[…] Last night, I attended another city council meeting to support Evanston Public Library Friends. As a special order of business, the group’s VP reported on their fundraising progress toward keeping Evanston, IL branch libraries open until March 2011 (here’s my initial take). […]

[…] you might know, I have a soft spot for libraries. After hearing about a dip in Illinois public library funding, I attended city council budget meetings in Evanston and helped support fundraising efforts […]